README.md

   1 LTTng-tools
   2 ===========
   3
   4 LTTng-tools is a set of tools to control [LTTng](https://lttng.org/)
   5 tracing. The project includes the LTTng session daemon, consumer damon
   6 and relay daemon, as well as `liblttng-ctl`, a C library used to
   7 communicate with the session daemon, and `lttng`, a command line
   8 interface to `liblttng-ctl`.
   9
  10
  11 Requirements and optional dependencies
  12 --------------------------------------
  13
  14 The following items are _required_ to build and run LTTng-tools
  15 components:
  16
  17   - **Linux kernel >= 2.6.27**: for `epoll()` support, at least this
  18     version is needed. However, `poll()` is also supported by
  19     configuring LTTng-tools with the `--disable-epoll` option. Using
  20     that, the kernel version may probably be older, but we can't provide
  21     any guarantee. Please let us know if you are able to go lower
  22     without any problems.
  23   - **[`liburcu`](http://www.liburcu.org/) >= 0.8.0**: userspace RCU library,
  24     by Mathieu Desnoyers and Paul E. McKenney.
  25   - **`libpopt` >= 1.13**:  command line arguments parsing library.
  26     - Debian/Ubuntu package: `libpopt-dev`
  27   - **`libuuid`**: universally unique ID library
  28     - Debian/Ubuntu package: `uuid-dev`
  29   - **`libxml2` >= 2.7.6**:  XML document parsing library. Needed for
  30     tracing session configuration saving/loading and machine interface
  31     output support.
  32     - Debian/Ubuntu package: `libxml2-dev`
  33
  34
  35 The following items are _optional_ dependencies:
  36
  37   - **[Babeltrace](https://lttng.org/babeltrace)**: trace viewer.
  38     Enables the use of `lttng view` command.
  39     - Debian/Ubuntu package: `babeltrace`
  40   - **[LTTng UST](https://lttng.org) (same minor version as LTTng Tools)**:
  41     userspace tracer. Enables the tracing of userspace applications.
  42     - Debian/Ubuntu package: `liblttng-ust-dev`
  43   - **Perl**: needed for `make check` and tests.
  44   - **Python >= 3.0**: needed for `make check` and tests.
  45     - Debian/Ubuntu package: `python3`
  46   - **SWIG >= 2.0** and **Python 3 development headers**: needed for
  47     Python bindings
  48     (enabled at configure time with the `--enable-python-bindings` option).
  49     - Debian/Ubuntu packages: `swig2.0` and `python3-dev`
  50   - **modprobe**: needed for automatic LTTng kernel modules loading
  51     (kernel tracing).
  52   - **bash**: needed for running `make check`.
  53   - **man** (manual pager): needed to view LTTng-tools commands' man
  54     pages with the `--help` option or with the `lttng help` command.
  55     Note that without `man`, you cannot get offline help with
  56     LTTng-tools commands, not even their usage.
  57
  58 LTTng-tools supports both the [LTTng Linux Kernel tracer](https://lttng.org)
  59 and [LTTng user space tracer](https://lttng.org) released as part of the same
  60 **minor** release series. While some releases do not change the tracer ABIs and
  61 should work with, no testing is performed to ensure cross-version compatibility
  62 is maintained.
  63
  64 Note that applications instrumented with older versions of the LTTng UST project
  65 do not have to be rebuilt or modified to work with the latest LTTng-tools.
  66 For more information on versioning, please refer to the
  67 [LTTng documentation](https://lttng.org/docs).
  68
  69 Building
  70 --------
  71
  72 This source tree is based on the Autotools suite from GNU to simplify
  73 portability. Here are some things you should have on your system in
  74 order to compile the Git repository tree:
  75
  76   - **GNU Autotools** (**Automake >= 1.10**, **Autoconf >= 2.64**,
  77     **Autoheader >= 2.50**; make sure your system-wide `automake` points
  78     to a recent version!)
  79   - **[GNU Libtool](http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/) >= 2.2**
  80   - **Flex >= 2.5.35**
  81   - **Bison >= 2.4**
  82
  83 Optional packages to build LTTng-tools man pages:
  84
  85   - **AsciiDoc >= 8.4.5** (previous versions may work, but were
  86     not tested)
  87   - **xmlto >= 0.0.21** (previous versions may work, but were
  88     not tested)
  89
  90 If you use GNU gold, which is _not_ mandatory, make sure you have this
  91 version:
  92
  93   - **GNU gold >= 2.22**
  94
  95 Before this version of GNU gold, we hit a
  96 [known bug](http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11317).
  97 Be advised that with GNU gold, you might have to specify
  98 `-L/usr/local/lib` in `LDFLAGS`.
  99
 100 If you get the tree from the Git repository, you will need to run
 101
 102     ./bootstrap
 103
 104 in its root. It calls all the GNU tools needed to prepare the tree
 105 configuration.
 106
 107 To build LTTng-tools, do:
 108
 109     ./configure
 110     make
 111     sudo make install
 112     sudo ldconfig
 113
 114 If you want Python bindings, add the `--enable-python-bindings` option
 115 to `configure`. Please note that some distributions will need the
 116 following environment variables set before running configure:
 117
 118     export PYTHON="python3"
 119     export PYTHON_CONFIG="/usr/bin/python3-config"
 120
 121
 122 Using
 123 -----
 124
 125 Please see [`doc/quickstart.txt`](doc/quickstart.txt) to get started
 126 with LTTng tracing. You can also use the `-h` or `--help` option of
 127 any `lttng` command, e.g.:
 128
 129     lttng enable-event --help
 130
 131 A network streaming HOWTO can be found in
 132 [`doc/streaming-howto.txt`](doc/streaming-howto.txt) which quickly
 133 helps you understand how to stream a LTTng 2.x trace.
 134
 135 A Python binding HOWTO can be found in
 136 [`doc/python-howto.txt`](doc/python-howto.txt) which quickly helps you
 137 understand how to use the Python module to control LTTng.
 138
 139
 140 Contact
 141 -------
 142
 143 Maintainer: [Jérémie Galarneau](mailto:jeremie.galarneau@efficios.com)
 144
 145 Mailing list: [`lttng-dev@lists.lttng.org`](https://lttng.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lttng-dev)
 146
 147
 148 Package contents
 149 ----------------
 150
 151 This package contains the following elements:
 152
 153   - `doc`: LTTng-tools documentation.
 154   - `include`: the public header files that will be installed on the system.
 155   - `src/bin`: source code of LTTng-tools programs.
 156     - `lttng-consumerd`: consumer daemon.
 157     - `lttng-relayd`: relay daemon.
 158     - `lttng-sessiond`: session daemon.
 159     - `lttng`: command line interface for LTTng tracing control.
 160   - `src/common`: common LTTng-tools source code.
 161     - `compat`: compatibility library mostly for FreeBSD and Linux.
 162     - `config`: tracing session configuration saving/loading.
 163     - `hashtable`: library wrapper over Userspace RCU hashtables.
 164     - `health`: health check subsytem.
 165     - `index`: CTF index utilities.
 166     - `kernel-consumer`: Linux kernel consumer.
 167     - `kernel-ctl`: Linux kernel tracer control.
 168     - `relayd`: relay daemon control.
 169     - `sessiond-comm`: session daemon communication.
 170     - `ust-consumer`: user space consumer.
 171   - `src/lib`: source code of LTTng-tools libraries.
 172     - `lttng-ctl`: LTTng control library.
 173   - `tests`: various test programs.